The lucky number was 988 when a fundraiser held a day of record breaking in the name of cancer research.

Kaveh Fatemian, 28, saved up for two years to host a fun day to inspire children to break records and raise money for Cancer Research.

With many cases of cancer in his family, Mr Fatemian has good reason to want to fight it, and so set out to break the world record for the longest one person has continuously hit a punch bag, 52 hours.

Mr Fatemian said: “I have been raising money for Cancer Research UK since 2009 and I had initially intended to host the longest football match of 72 hours, but we had terrible luck with injuries.

“That’s when I came up with the idea of punch bag record. I started on Thursday and finished Saturday evening.”

The day saw 1,500 children descend on Southgate Hockey centre, in Snakes Lane, Southgate, for the ‘inspired4life’ day where children could try out a variety of sports as well as attempt to break world records.

In total four world records were broken, including the most people wearing a paper crown - raised from 749 to 988 and the most people unwrapping and eating sweets in one go - from 614 to 988.

The crowd also raised the longest chain of people having a thumb war from 957 to 988, and smashed the record for the longest chain of people passing through a hoola hoop, increasing it from 249 to 988.

Mr Fatemian said: “This wasn’t just about my challenge but about the kids coming down, trying out new sports and fund raising themselves. Hopefully it will inspire them to fundraise in the future.”

So far, Mr Fatemian has managed to raise more than £16,000 but is expecting that to raise to more than £20,000.

He added: “We hope next year to have the football match at the Southgate hockey club and hope to raise even more but I am very proud to have raised so much for a very worthy cause.”